


cold as i already know

by tamsinb



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Lesbian Finn James, Lesbian Kennedy Loser, Memory Loss, Turning Into a Fish, trench stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:14:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28433013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamsinb/pseuds/tamsinb
Summary: "You’ll always have a place down here! When you decide to fully die, I mean. You can look any way you want, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference!”“You’re way too genuine, Nora, it’s irresponsible. I’ll probably hate you for it someday. When I do end up down here.”“But not now?”“No. Not just yet.”In which two variously dead Crabs forget what it means to be human together.
Relationships: Finn James & Nora Perez, Kennedy Loser/Finn James, Nora Perez & Combs Duende
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	cold as i already know

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This one uses some fairly niche Crabs lore, so a bit of preamble:
> 
> \- The Crabs killed their city's crab deity sometime before S1.  
> \- Finn James was part of this, and as a result was trapped beneath waves until they rejoined as an incineration replacement in Season 4. When she comes out, she's part fish.  
> \- Nora Perez is an incinerated Crab who now works guiding the souls of the dead to their rest in the Trench.  
> \- Finn James and Kennedy Loser dated pre-Finn's getting thrown into the bay.
> 
> It also borrows heavily from some headcanons that aren't my own, you can find those at:  
> [whatever here that's left of me is yours (just as it was)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28184340) for Kennedy/Finn context.  
> [if the silence takes you then i hope it takes me too](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27728035) for Nora/Combs context.  
> Both of these take place after this fic, but all this information has been on reblase for months so I doubt you could really spoil yourself with it.
> 
> The title is taken from [Baby Blu](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF3Hvn8Wl-g) by Nilüfer Yanya.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

* * *

There was a glitch in the system and Nora Perez had made it her mission to figure out what it was. Well, it was less a glitch and more an occasionally-weird-thing. And it was less a system and more whatever death-attuned proprioception she’d gained upon entering the monitor’s employ. What she knew was that whatever sense reached out and informed her of the newly-fallen dead would occasionally blip for a bit, faint and momentary and out of schedule but real. And gone almost as soon as Nora noticed.

hmm

i dunno, beats me

haven’t smelled anything, myself

whole place smells like fish though so

The monitor had turned out not to be any help at all. But, Nora had noticed one thing. Whatever waves of acknowledgement called her to her charges, these came from the same place each time. And so, Nora did what any self-respecting psychopomp would do. She waited.

*******

Time passed for Finn James in fits and starts. No light to mark the procession of the hours, knocking any biorhythms out of whack within the first week. And so, were you to ask her, she would be able to tell you that it had been at least one week’s time since she’d been flung to the depths of the ocean, stranded and starving, and if this was a satisfactory answer for you then you could go on your merry way - if you were able to make her out over the sounds of thrashing limbs in water, that is.

Finn marked time in hunger and in solitude. A day’s worth of hunger and a day’s worth of loneliness. As consistent a metric as she could find however many fathoms deep she was. A screaming and a howling in place of a metronome.

And then she began to die.

She didn’t realize that’s what she was doing, at first. Water was water, after all, and when your surroundings looked the same whether or not your eyes were open, it was easier just to leave them closed most of the time.

She chanced to have them open upon one occasion of slipping past the boundary into the Trench. Or maybe she’d only just then drifted deep enough to find it, slow eddies of buoyancy like a sinusoid. Maybe Finn wouldn’t even have known, except - well there were no  _ trees _ underwater, not that she knew of, anyway. Only enough time to catch a glimpse before she was back, drowning in the usual depths.

The second time, or at least the second time she  _ knew _ she was somewhere other than where she’d been, she was able to stay a bit longer. The pressure was less a vice and more an atmosphere here. She could right herself, and see ground under her at last to know there existed some reference for proper orientation. And floating now upright she could turn and see she’d found herself in a clearing, murky blackness punctuated by a circlet of trees, leaning in, dead boughs forming an arcane, scrabbly fishbowl.

The third time Finn found herself in the land of death, there was someone there.

“There you are!” A sudden influx of light flexed Finn’s irises small and the pain felt new. The light was from a lantern and it illuminated a woman and Finn couldn’t tell whether her face was exuberance masking care, or the other way around. She was wearing a cloak over most of her body but Finn could see slacks and business-casual loafers poking out from underneath. Perched atop her head was a tall, crooked hat that reminded Finn of a piece of coral.

*******

“There you are!” Nora jumped up from her seat. At long last, her waiting paid off. In the clearing she’d triangulated from intermittent, increasingly-long transmissions floated a girl, in what had once been street clothes trying desperately to look like battle armor, seaweed streaked through her hair. She said nothing, and Nora felt herself being appraised, before she noticed the girl was squinting against the light from her lantern.

“Oh, my bad! Here, let me just-” and Nora dimmed her light, letting the permanent shade of the afterlife encroach a bit further towards them.

The girl seemed to relax, but was still silent. Nora did what she usually did and gave a bit of space, then launched into the spiel.

“Welcome to the afterlife! We’re so glad to have you here. Would you like me to guide you to your rest?”

And the girl registered this, which was a good sign, and moved her lips like she was trying to remember what they were for. She choked out a single syllable like it was spoken through syrup and it hung in the air like the lure of an angler long after she’d disappeared.

*******

Finn James knew better than despair, knew better than to let doubt creep in that they would never see that desolate but novel place again, and so they prepared. They moved their lips and opened them and their jaw cracked and if they hadn’t been already their lungs would’ve filled with saltwater. They practiced forming their mouth around syllables, relearning what they hadn’t done in whatever passed for ages down here.

And, eventually, she did reappear. Looked down at the ground, seeing the same woman reading by lanternlight. Sitting atop what looked to be a seat cushion, taken away from what must now be a highly uncomfortable seat.

The words she’d meant to say last time, lacking the practice to say them. “How are you- we. How are we speaking underwater.”

The woman seemed not startled but pleasantly surprised and closed her magazine.

“Hello again! Nice to see you. To answer your question: I don’t think we’re underwater. Not in the conventional way, anyway.”

Finn squinted at the woman who was smiling as if what she’d just said explained anything. “But. I’m floating.”

“Oh! Hm. Well, we may be technically underwater, actually? I’m fairly new at this. But it normally doesn’t affect people. Maybe… you brought the drowning with you?”

Finn wondered if her lungs needed to breathe, if they were still waterlogged and barnacleridden, and even flared her nostrils to test before she thought better of it. Didn’t want to break whatever suspension might be keeping her here.

“Would you like me to help?” asked the woman.

“And how’s that?” asked Finn.

“Take my hand,” and she extended one upward, which Finn impulsively grabbed, some part of her motor functions deciding to leap at the chance to touch any other person, and latching on felt-

nothing. It was like jumping in water the same temperature as your skin. No firmness or grasp or sensation, and yet. It led Finn downwards. And the interlocked digits brought her to ground and as the tips of her toes in soiled sneakers touched the ashen dirt Finn felt the combined years of dodged gravity bear down on her and she staggered to the ground, saved from complete collapse only by the support of a shoulder that offered nothing outside the vague impression of presence.

“I’m good, I’m good,” said Finn, warding off further help. “Just. Not used to my legs. Working.”

“You’d be surprised how common an experience that is!” chirped the woman.

“Right.”

“Well, if you’re ready, shall we get going?”

“There’s somewhere to go?”

“Your eternal rest, of course.”

Finn cocked her head to the side. “Rest sounds kinda nice, actually. But I’m not sure I’m actually dead.”

“Well, of course you are!” The woman was already walking away through the trees and Finn instinctively followed. “You’re here after all.”

“Right, but. I don’t know. Something’s weird. If I was going to die I would’ve died a long time ago.”

“Hmm. Maybe you’re a late bloomer?”

Finn tried to laugh but it got stuck somewhere inside their nose and they ended up sneezing.

“You’re pretty upbeat for a. Spirit guide or whatever you are.” She pushed a branch away from her face as they continued their way towards whatever destination she was being promised.

“I think my job description says ‘psychopomp’. And is it okay? The affect usually helps people adjust faster.”

“You don’t have to worry about it, you can just. Be yourself.”

A smile as if it were a silly thing to say. “Who else would I be?”

“You know what I mean. Like, normal. The way you are when you aren’t filling a role.”

“I dont… I’m not sure what you mean.” An edge of tension newly in her voice. “I- Hm. I must’ve had something like that once, right? But… I’m not even sure what that would look like any more. Maybe…” and she stopped for just a second and turned over her shoulder, “Maybe the role’s all I am, now.”

Finn stopped too. The woman in front of her, for just a split second, was cloaked in robes aflame, skin as black as the soot she stood on. Then, a laugh, and the illusion vanished.

“Well! No use worrying about it now, gotta get you to your new home. Plenty of time to puzzle out the mystery there.”

And the woman turned and continued walking forward and Finn tried to follow, tried to say some word after her, but all hopes of that were crushed out by the corecold chill of the sea’s returning pressure.

*******

Nora swallowed her bite of PB&J as soon as the girl re-reappeared.

“Hello! Glad to see you again.”

“Told you I wasn’t dead.”

“At least not all the way!” Nora thought back to what the monitor had told her when she’d asked, about waves and osmotic pressure. Not in such terms, of course, but she’d pieced most of it together. “It seems like you’re at some kind of threshold. Fully accepted by neither the dead nor the living.”

“And what’s keeping me there?”

“If you can’t answer that, then I surely can’t.” The girl looked frustrated by that answer and Nora wished she had more to offer. “At any rate, I will unfortunately not be able to lead you to your eternal rest.”

“Bummer,” the girl said, and Nora couldn’t tell if she meant it. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Waiting for you, you mean?”

“Right.”

“Well, I leave sometimes of course. Fairly regularly actually, I was pretty certain I’d figured out the pattern behind your comings and goings and, hey! I was right. Hooray, me!”

Another one of the girl’s weird nose-laughs. It was a wonderful quirk.

“But like. What for?”

“Well, if I can’t take you to your rest, the least I could do is to make what time you do spend here comfortable. And what better way to do that than with my company!”

“Oh. Um. Thank you.”

“Of course!” Nora pulled out her clipboard to make the note that this one was  _ not rude, just disoriented,  _ then frowned. “Right! That’s right, I never asked for your name!”

“Finn. Uh, James.”

“Finn! James!” copied down Nora.

“And. You?”

“Oh, how silly of me! Nora Perez, formerly of the Baltimore Crabs, currently of the Hall of Flame! Also known as the Trench!”

“Baltimore?”

“Correct! Not that we were very good, of course, but-”

“I’m from there.”

“Wow! Small world.”

“But. I don’t know you. Were you around for…?”

“Oh, do you mean the Killing of the Olde One? No, I’m sorry to say I wasn’t.”

“I was.” It’s such a tiny voice but of course Nora heard it, she would hear anything spoken about one of her favorite subjects. Her face lit up.

“That’s incredible! I was always so envious of my teammates who were there, I admit. How did it go! Was it exciting?”

“Well. I was flung into the ocean and I’ve been there ever since. So. Take a guess.”

“Oh.” Nora deflated like she always did when she accidentally overstepped into ruining the mood of one of her charges, and this time somehow even more so. Finn gained a distant look in her eye. “I’m very sorry.”

“No big deal. Hey, uh. Did we end up winning?”

“Hmm. Eliding some of the details, generally the opinion is that Baltimore’s assorted citizenry were victorious against their god.”

“Oh. Good.” A blink like remembering. “Is. I don’t suppose you knew. Someone named Kennedy Loser?”

“Ken? Of course! He and Combs keep the team in great shape, morale-wise and that sort of thing.”

“You keep saying team.”

“Oh, that’s right, I guess you missed it. They brought Blaseball back, isn’t that exciting!”

“Really? That old thing?”

“It’s all the rage! The first season was great, so much fun. The deaths put a bit of a damper on things, though!” Nora said the last bit with a laugh to try and undercut the seriousness. It didn’t work.

“But everyone’s…”

“I’m the only one of them who’s here,” said Nora, desperately biting back the  _ so far _ that her brain was urging her to add.

“Oh. Good. That’s good. Will you be here? If I come again.”

“Absolutely! No doubt about it.” Nora knew a bit of false certainty could go a long way.

“I’d like to hear about them. If that’s okay.”

“All of them? Or just Kennedy?” Finn blushed at that and Nora knew she’d been right. Wouldn’t do to press it any more. “Well, I’ll give you the full update. Now, maybe? Or, if you’ll be going back soon…”

“Not sure when I’ll be going back. I mean, I can’t really-” and she was gone.

“Well,” smiled Nora, this time to herself, “I suppose that answers that question.” The timing worked out well, though. There was someone to collect. Any longer and the new arrival might start to get anxious.

*******

“If not even a psychopomp can tell me what’s going on I must be pretty royally screwed.”

“I wish I could be more help. I’m still sort of learning on my feet here…”

“Not your fault, Nora, I know you’re trying.”

“Death is easy for most people! I’m not sure why it seems to be so hard for you.”

“Can’t see why I’d be the first, nothing really special about me, normal human and all that.”

Nora cocked her head to the side quizzically.

“Mostly human, I assume you mean?”

For the first time Finn became aware of a ringing in her ears, like the endless rushing of water was trapped somewhere inside her, amplified through every cavity in her skull.

She didn’t want to ask, but she had to.

“Am. Am I not? Human?”

“Well! Mostly! But, unless something has changed since I was around, I don’t believe gills are commonly observed on members of Mammalia.”

And Finn raised her hand up to her neck, easing it down from her jawline to the skin on either side of her throat. A moment’s pause. Then a ripple of motion, unusual and unfamiliar, an extension of parts of her body that shouldn’t be untethered moving into places they shouldn’t be able to go. Finn withdrew her hand sharply, her breaths coming more quickly now, and not coming through her mouth.

“Was… How long has it been like this?” Try as she might, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt the urge to use her mouth to breathe, as useless as a mouth would have been underwater. But she remembered drowning, drowning over and over again so it couldn’t have  _ always _ been there.

Nora laughed sheepishly. “I’m afraid you’re going to continue to find me useless.”

“What do you mean?”

“You see, ever since I got here, I’ve had a bit of trouble… keeping track of things that exist outside. I remember that you were here, of course, I have it noted down in my clipboard, but. Well, I don’t have anything written about what you looked like, so-”

“You don’t remember.”

“Not a thing! For all I know you might have been a houseplant the first time you got here.”

“Nora, could you please just once save the jokes for an appropriate time.”

“Oh, was that a joke? My apologies, I’ll be less naturally funny.”

Finn blinked. She laid backwards across the ground with a sigh, staring up at what might eventually become a sky, somewhere past - if they truly were in the ocean’s depths - miles and miles of hardpacked seawater.

“But!” interjected Nora, scooching over to sit beside her. “But you can remember!”

“I didn’t even notice this time. Can’t see anything while I’m drowning. Unless it’s like my arms, I probably won’t even be able to tell.”

“But I can see! And you can remember. Together we’ve got all our bases covered!”

“Are… you sure?”

“You have hair and two ears!” Nora stated like it was a proof of concept.

“Well. Good start.”

Finn closed her eyes and tried not to shrink under Nora’s scan. “Red hair, two eyes, nose, lips, two arms, lateral branchia…”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Oh, um. Gills! Two of them! Apologies, I was a marine biologist before this.”

“No kidding.”

*******

Nora described things as she saw them. And she was far more familiar with the fish parts of Finn than the human parts. She always had to be careful, though, never knowing which parts might be new.

“Illicium prominent above the brow, holding an esca which appears to be in healthy condition.”

“Nora. English.”

“Um! A lure! The kind that lights up.”

“Like an anglerfish.”

“Exactly! Exactly like an anglerfish.”

“So that’s what they’re going for.”

Nora didn’t ask who. “You can probably light it up!”

“You think so?” Finn closed her eyes for a moment, and the lure descending from the crown of her head lit up. She opened her eyes to look at it disconnectedly.

“I might not even need to carry my lantern here anymore!”

Finn didn’t respond, rolling her head from side to side, watching the light trace a figure 8 through the air, or an infinity symbol. Her eyes blinked sideways and Nora tried and failed to remember if that was new or not.

*******

“Do you think,” asked Nora, “that Combs and I got along?”

Finn was broken out of her reverie, staring at the newly-gray flesh of her arm. Not decay but transformation, spotted by patches of barnacle and other hangers-on that couldn’t be scraped away.

“I thought you remembered Combs.”

“Yes! Of course I do, perfectly! I just am having a bit of trouble visualizing myself interacting with them. Not sure how I would behave. How I  _ did _ behave.”

“You don’t know who you are.”

“Very well put, Finn! Straight to the heart of things.”

“God you’re creepy sometimes, Nora.”

“Oh, my apologies! Is there anything I can do to put you more at ease?”

“Don’t. Don’t bother. I’d feel bad if you did it on my account.” Finn sighed and she was almost used to the sensation of it leaving from somewhere other than her mouth.

Nora was still looking at her expectantly. Oh, right, she’d been asked a question.

“I think. I think you and Combs probably got along great. You’re both take-charge types but they’ve always been more laid back and hands-off. You’re very. Active.”

“Yes! I think that’s probably right, I think you nailed it.” Nora was smiling and Finn sighed in relief that she hadn’t been called on her bullshitting.

“I can imagine it now, which is almost the same as remembering. They’re really important to me, you know! I know that they were and that’s enough.”

Nora slipped into reverie for a moment and Finn followed suit, mind following its own path. “Did. Did Ken ever talk about me?”

The look on Nora’s face told her it had been too much to hope for. “I’m very sorry, Finn. I wish I could tell you anything definitive. But, knowing Ken, and knowing how obviously important he is to you, I can say with certainty that he felt your loss keenly. He bears things silently, as is his way, but I can say without a doubt that you are borne by him. Still.”

“...How long has it been, Nora.”

“Given the date of the battle, along with the state of your clothes? Between five and ten years.”

Finn’s light dimmed. “That long?”

“The uncertainty is more due to the fact that time flows unstably here, whether by my perception or the physics of the place. If I had to guess, I would say seven. Possibly eight years.”

“I lost track.”

“Time dilation is a common sensation associated with drowning.”

“Right. Drowning. Guess I’m still doing that.” Finn’s eyes rolled freely in her head, a new sensation to match her new modes of vision. “But I’m breathing, aren’t I? I figured you couldn’t be drowning if you were breathing.”

“I wonder, Finn, if what we’re doing here could rightly be called breathing.”

Finn inhaled almost as if to prove a point. She couldn’t feel it reach her lungs. She wondered what her lungs looked like.

Finn felt choked, suddenly. She grasped out. “Can I hold your hand?”

“Of course, any time! Can I ask why?”

“Need to feel something that’s not water.”

“You’ve leaned on me before, Finn, you know that there’s… not much of me to feel.”

“Better than nothing.”

*******

Nora held Finn, as had become their typical mode of interaction following the ritual description of her form. Today, apparently Finn’s protruding dentary bones were new, spiny protrusions overlapping from her upper and lower jaws. She had been moving her hands across them, testing their sharpness, but she’d seemed to consciously stop herself from that, now only absentmindedly playing with moving her jaw around.

“I hear things, you know, Nora.”

“Yes?” knowing nothing was required of her but a prompt.

“There’s the sound of waves. And it sounds like voices. Or maybe the voices sound like waves. I haven’t figured it out yet. They follow me around, even here, in my ears.”

“Can you tell what they’re saying?”

“Sometimes. They’re the ones that did- are doing this, to me. They say they need me for something.”

“Do they say what?”

“Not yet. Only that it’ll be soon.”

“Well. I think it’s nice to be needed! When people need you they can rely on you for things, and you can help people! Everyone wins.”

“But what happens to you in the process?”

“Oh! Hm, I suppose I forgot about that part. I wonder what  _ has _ happened to me. Do I look okay?”

“Couldn’t say. Don’t know what you looked like before.”

“Perhaps we’re in similar predicaments, then.”

“You’ve looked the same since I’ve been coming here, at least.”

“I suppose that’s a relief!”

“Is it? I mean, the  _ exact _ same. And I’m pretty sure it’s been a while.”

“I think you’re doing enough changing for the both of us.”

“And you’re doing enough staying the same for the both of us.”

Nora felt something inside her, then, a terror and a pain that normally she pushed away, covered with other things, or maybe she’d just forgotten. “Hey. Finn. Promise me, okay? Promise me you’ll get out of this whatever this is. For both of our sakes. If you can do that, I can stay stable for both of us, keep myself the same so you can change whatever you need to, do what you can to get out. Okay?”

She looked into Finn’s eyes, which may once have been different, but now were all black, as if what sclera there had been had faded backwards. But they weren’t hollow. They reflected light.

“I promise, Nora.” And Finn smiled, lips pressing out from between teeth jagged like the opening of a cave.

*******

The waves were less crushing. Finn’s body was made for them now. Her light was not made for vision, it was a predator’s tool, but in what light it did cast she could see that there was no prey to be found. Screaming replaced by impatience. Howling replaced by restless limbs and restless eyes. Her beating vascular system a new metronome.

And she heard words spoken and understood them with new ears. They told her of how she will be useful soon. She listened, honed and immobile in lonely waves. And then she descended into death’s brief respite.

Nora was there. Clipboard flipped to a sheet further down than usual.

“Oh. Hey, Nora.”

“Finn! Hi! I had an idea!”

“Oh?”

“Instead of describing you, today I’m going to draw you! That way you can have a better idea of what you look like.”

“...Why not just a mirror?”

“We don’t really use mirrors down here. They don’t work right!”

It was one of those questions Finn knew better than to press on. “Thank you, Nora. I think I’d like that.”

“Great! It might take a bit, I was always fairly slow at this.”

“Should I, pose or something?”

“Oh, no, you’re fine! You can just sit there, it’s okay.”

“Right.”

Nora wasn’t lying about taking her time. But then again, Finn’s sense of time was out of sorts to begin with, so she found it easy to let herself drift in and out. If it hadn’t been for Nora’s detail-ravenous stare tethering her in place she might have let her mind split off from her body, consumed by the whispers of her inner waves like she spent most of her time while drowning.

The gaze passing over her was intense. It almost overwhelmed her. Finn had grown unaccustomed to this sort of presence, it was why she’d turned Nora down any time she’d offered to bring a second visitor around. But just the one was all Finn needed. Not like there was anyone she wanted to see in here anyway, even however many seasons on.

She watched Nora, the way she was now ferociously eying the page, pencil notching lines finer and more intricate than Finn reasoned she deserved. Detail foremost on Nora’s mind as ever. Her eyes danced and Finn noticed herself watching instinctually for signs of sudden movement, of flight. Nora shook out the stiffness from her hand. Finn felt some new muscle in her tense.

“All done!”

Finn blinked. Broke eye contact before making it again.

“Would you like to see?”

She nodded and Nora unclipped the sheet and passed it over. And Finn learned that, as much as she thought she had given it up long ago, there was still a part of her that was holding out hope that maybe, somehow, against all odds, she still looked like herself, and not a monster. But a monster was exactly what was captured on the page, with all the straightforwardness of an anatomical diagram, all sunken eyes and threats. She moved her hand up to her face and tried in vain to feel around her face for the source of the menace the picture showed.

She wanted to tear it up, condemn herself to fragments in effigy. But Nora was still watching her to see how she liked it. She handed it back facedown.

“Was it… not good?”

“Probably too good. Sorry. I didn’t expect not to recognize myself.”

“Would you like me to change it?”

“Not sure I could even tell you how to make it look more like me, anymore.”

“Perhaps when you make it back to the surface you can find something.”

“Doubt there’s anything left for me up there anyway.”

“Hmmm. Well, even if that’s the case, you’ll always have a place down here! When you decide to fully die, I mean. You can look any way you want, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference!”

Nora was beaming and Finn found it impossible to block out all of the light. She chuckled and turned away. “You’re way too genuine, Nora, it’s irresponsible. I’ll probably hate you for it someday. When I do end up down here.”

“But not now?”

“No. Not just yet.”

*******

“Two pectoral fins on the temples, residual median fins across the nape of the neck, two nostrils, two eyes demonstrating-”

“I’m hungry, Nora.”

Nora paused. Finn had never interrupted one of these before.

“Would you like my PB&J?”

“Not like that.”

“Oh.”

“I can’t remember the last time I felt hungry. And even then it didn’t feel like this.”

“Your stomach probably works differently.”

“It’s almost time, Nora.”

“For?”

“Dunno. They don’t tell me. Not clearly, anyway.”

“I see.”

Nora thought for a moment, then removed the PB&J from its plastic baggie.

“Nora, I’m not hungry for a sandwich.”

Nora unclipped the last piece of paper in the stack on her clipboard and folded it before sliding it into the baggie.

“Here! To take with you. So it doesn’t get wet.”

“Is that-”

“The picture of you! Yes. I know you didn’t much care for it but… it’s the best thing I have to give to you. A memento.”

Finn watched it for a moment before taking the bag from Nora’s hand and slipping it into a pocket. “Wish I could pay it back somehow.” She lifted a foot, casually. “Want a shoe?”

“No, Finn, I don’t want your shoe.”

“Worth a shot.”

“Would you like to… leave something in my clipboard?”

“Like, written?”

“Yes!” Nora flipped to the sheet where at the bottom she’d penciled in  _ Finn James: Anomaly/Occasional Visitor. Not rude, just disoriented. Remember to describe her! _ “That way I’ll be sure to always remember it.”

“Maybe I should write something like,  _ incredibly cool. _ Or  _ hot as hell.” _

“Hm!”

“I’m kidding, Nora, I’m kidding.”

Finn took the pencil Nora handed her.

* * *

An Epiphany.

_ It’s time, Finn. _

“For what?”

_ Your return. _

“The surface?”

Silence.

“And when I get there?”

The mute sound of waves.

“Should I even bother asking how to get back.”

_ Swim. _

“Great. Thanks.”

When you get deep enough underwater, the pressure coming from the sea above you is enough to counteract buoyancy. You don’t float upwards. You stay in place, if you don’t sink. And so for Finn, reaching the surface felt less like swimming than it did climbing. But she had time. Hand over hand on handholds that would pass between her fingers had they not gained webbing.

Slowly, incrementally, unflinchingly, Finn made her way to the surface.

*******

Nora was making her rounds through the trench, placing the day’s list of chores on the doors of each resident. Then: a path. Leading from one of the unoccupied rooms. A new arrival. She placed the sheets delicately down against the wall and brisked to where her cloak and hat were kept.

Finn knew where she was meant to go. To where her friends were. And she knew where that was. The corpse of the object of the conquest that had put her out of commission for so long lay unsteady on the water. Clamor within. Her breaths were raspy and her steps were staggered but she’d forced her way out of the water and was establishing herself more on this side of alive with each beat of whatever her heart looked like now.

Nora was never afraid on her walks through the parts of the trench that were less like home and more like nuclear winter. She always knew where she was going. And when to get there. And she always had a light.

Finn felt time pass through her mind. She was watching, now, pushing herself through the crowd. There was sun. And then there was no sun. And she saw Kennedy. And Kennedy saw flame.

Nora cast light against shade. Hand as steady as she could make it, feeling her shadow cast behind her as if it were stretching away, tearing some part of her out. Eyes locked on the path’s end.

Finn was screaming, leaping onto the field. But someone else was closer. Ken flew to the side, unharmed on the grass.

Nora saw her arrival float like a leaf down to settle among the sediment. A small crater. The smell of smoke and panic.

“Hello! Welcome to the afterlife! We’re so glad to have you here.”

They stood up. Looked around to take stock. Matted hair already losing its traces of singe.

“Nora?”

“C- Combs?”

Finn reached him. He’d been pushed out of danger at the last second. She would have done it herself, if it had been asked of her. But it wasn’t. She wished it had been. Her duty now was to replace.

“Combs… They…” Ken was murmuring. Finn placed a hand on his shoulder and he didn’t seem to register it.

“I’m sorry, Ken. I’m so sorry.”

He looked up. Stupor. Then: “Wait, Finn? How in the- Where did-”

“You. Recognize me?”

“Course. Would anywhere. I uh. Like the new look.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t-”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”

“You shouldn’t be comforting me.”

“Probably not. But you shouldn’t be alive. So let’s call it even.”

Nora was walking back along the path, Combs in tow, chattering away like she somehow knew she always had, getting no response but somehow silently affirmed that they were listening. Nora rounded a tree. Found herself in a clearing. She stopped.

“Oh! Combs! I can’t believe I almost didn’t mention!”

“Yes?”

“I met Finn! You know her, right? She said she-”

“Yes. I do.”

“Too bad you just missed each other! We could’ve had a picnic! Or something.”

“Do you know. How she is?”

And Nora wracked her brain. Then, as she usually did, went to fill in the gaps with her clipboard. An entry tucked away below several more official-seeming ones. In Nora’s handwriting, except for the end of it.

_ Nora: I’m going to be okay. I’m going to be me. I’ll see you again someday. Until then. _

Nora smiled. “Good news, Combs. She’s okay.”

Finn was with Kennedy after the game.

“They shouldn’tve done it. Should’ve let me- I mean, they were-”

“Combs would be saying the same if things were reversed, Ken.” She didn’t know any other way of comfort anymore than to be blunt. But Ken nodded.

“I just. Wish I knew they were okay? Somehow.”

“They are,” said Finn, more quickly than her thoughts. Ken raised an eyebrow.

“You seem pretty confident.”

“Oh. Um.” She struggled and failed to find justification for her certainty. “Just a feeling, I think?”

“Right.”

Finn’s hand went to her pocket. She wasn’t quite sure why. There was something inside and she pulled it out.

“Is that a. Sandwich bag?” asked Ken.

“Still got crumbs on it, so yeah, seems like it.”

Ken scooched around beside her as she opened it, unfolding it to find a pencil sketch of herself.

“Oh, wow!” admired Ken. “Where’d you get that?”

Finn squinted, her light glowing brighter, but her time spent drowning was receding as graceful and inexorable as tide.

“Anyway, look! It’s you! And a great likeness.”

“Yeah. It looks… good.”

“Reminds me of the ones Nora used to make, actually.”

“Nora?”

“Oh, right, I guess you wouldn’t have known her, came around after all the. Business. Great kid, you probably would’ve liked her.”

Finn shrugged. “Who knows.”

“Well, at any rate, whoever did it did great work.”

“Yeah.” And Finn felt something in her eye and wasn’t quite sure if the water there was a tear or just some strange facet of how her new body worked. “Yeah. She sure did.”


End file.
